There’s hundreds of thousands of small companies who need products to assemble and make into complete products to sell to their customers.

Let’s consider the local bicycle shop that is always looking for parts to make and repair bikes. What about a cutlery maker, kayak designer or any number of other businesses who need parts to create the products they’re selling.

With the partnership between Alibaba and Office Depot, there’s a powerful match.

See the new website here – www.alibaba.com/officedepot

American companies such as repair shops, manufacturers and the like, who are Office Depot customers can now work with their familiar account person to have access to not just office supplies but inventory for their businesses.

Office Depot is now able to offer their customers not just office supplies but also to help them even further grow their businesses by helping them craft the products they’re selling to customers.

We are increasingly in a global economy, sure this is old news, but there’s still many businesses who want to go global and need help.

Alibaba has a range of services to help US companies expand. This includes logistics, payments and dispute mitigation and resolution that can help them even more efficient and run their business more profitably. Essentially Alibaba is an online platform where a growing business can take their idea for a product and make it a reality with our 150k global manufacturing suppliers.